Dreamweaver to CFB (FTP and other gripes)

[R8_UK]

I 'get' the potential benefits of moving to CFB from Dreamweaver. I have watched all the videos and read the manual and I love the integration with Flex.

BUT

It appears very little thought has been put into the FTP and synchronisation tools..

Ideally:

I would like to set the destination FTP address for each project (at the moment although it asks me from the subdirectory, it shows me the top level root and I have to drill down each time for the destination where I want to upload)

I don't want to see nor have editing capabilities on my remote files by default.

Accidents happen and I'd rather they happened locally.

Accidentally deleting a directory remotely could be disastrous.

When the FTP client is busy, the rest of the IDE goes to sleep.  Dreamweaver sorted this out two versions ago.

There appears no way to stop the interaction with the remote server.

So until all these (pretty fundamental) issues get sorted. I ill probably use FB to play with CF9 and jump back to Dreamweaver to use their robust FTP tools.  (which just leaves me with the version control issues now that I have to put my FB source files into the wwwroot of my local server). Again a real pain !

Has anyone else found these problems - or worked out how to get around them ?

R8_UK

[Charlie Arehart · Accepted solution]

R8_UK, I hear your concerns, and they're rather common. I hope I can address

(and resolve) some of them here for you.

First, I use the FTP feature all the time and it never makes the IDE

"sleep". You may want to turn on the progress view (window>show

view>other>general>progress). It will tell you what's happening as FTP

processes are running. It will also tell you other processes going on in the

editor. You may be surprised to find something else causing the "sleeps" you

sense.

As for you saying that "it shows me the top level root and I have to drill

down each time for the destination where I want to upload", again I don't

have that problem. Are sure you didn't just make a mistake in setting up the

FTP connection? Admittedly, changing them is tough. You have to go to the

File view, and there you'll see what FTP (or FTPS or SFTP) connections

you've made.

Or do you mean that you ARE using the File view, and it's when you open that

that it makes you drill down? Well, you don't need to do that. You can

instead connect your project to an FTP connection (either in the project

properties and its synchronization section, or by just right-clicking

anywhere in the project and choose Synchronize>Create New Synchronize

Connection).

If you do that, then it also solves a common complaint I hear from some,

that it's complicated to do an FTP upload in CFBuilder. Well, I just right

click on the file (or on the editor workspace to upload the file I'm working

on, such as after changing and testing it locally), then choose

Synchronize>Upload. Bang, done.

There is also a more evolved "synchronize" feature that lets you do more

(including comparing the contents of a file locally to remote, which comes

in really handy). There's an even still more evolved interface in

Window>Show View>Other>HTML Standard Views>Sync Explorer. The latter two

come closer to the kind of two-paned interface for managing local/remote

files that some expected in DW.

Of course, different people have different desires for FTP access. You have

said you do NOT want to edit the file directly on the remote server. I hope

what I share above helps you. But those who DO like editing on the remote

server (indeed, at their peril) will groan that they wish they didn't have

to do even that simple manual effort to upload: they wish that on save it

would upload. I don't know if we can ever expect that from within a local

project in Eclipse. It just goes against the grain of better development

practices, and it's one area where perhaps it's a good thing if the IDE

pushes one to reconsider that.

Until then, though, they can indeed use the File view, which does provide

direct access to a remote server and its files. With that, you do open the

remote file in the IDE and when you save it, it's pushed immediately to the

server.

Hope some of this helps you (and others) with your consternation with CFB

and FTP. Come on in, the water's fine. (But I'll grant that's a relative

statement. If you're still not sold, keep pointing out your concerns.)

/charlie

[R8_UK]

Hi Charlie

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question with such clarity.  I hope the final documentation produced by the big 'A' will be as comprehensive.

As Ben Forta said "getting someone to change their religion is sometimes easier than their IDE"

However, your answer has taken me a step closer to moving !

Cheers

Martin

[Charlie Arehart]

Great to hear. Thanks.

FWIW, I will be speaking at the CFinNC conference (cfinnc.com) the weekend after next, and my topic will be "Hidden gems in CFBuilder". You can bet that FTP challenges are one of the things I'll be addressing.

And BTW, I totally get the challenge making a change. I was a steadfast CF Studio (then HomeSite) user. I grumbled through the move to DW, and grudgingly came to accept it but still favored HS, as do many. Still, with the later releases of the CFB betas, I warmed to it, and finding solutions to challenges like this did win me over.

It is now my primary CF editor (I won't say IDE, as that may annoy some who still just want only an editor). I really feel that it suits that audience, too. Of course there are so many more things that it adds, as a true IDE, but to switch metaphors, you have to lead the horses to water.

/charlie